Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A little to the left now . . .

Today is the birthday of Rudolf Rocker (March 25, 1873 - September 19, 1958), historian, writer and prominent social activist.

"Rudolf Rocker is best remembered as perhaps one of the best educated, most erudite and articulate anarcho-syndicalist writers and union activists of the Twentieth century. His writings contain countless penetrating insights into the nature of power and its effects on the human character and the social environment. They ring of a deep desire for complete liberty of action and equality of situation, and as such are quite unique."direct quote source (1)

"We have come more and more under the dominance of mechanics and sacrificed living humanity to the dead rhythm of the machine without most of us even being conscious of the monstrosity of the procedure. Hence we frequently deal with such matters with indifference and in cold blood as if we handled dead things and not the destinies of men." - Rudolf Rocker

"Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force. And this unintelligence of its objectives sets its stamp on its supporters also and renders them stupid and brutal, even when they were originally endowed with the best of talents. One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling." - Rudolf Rocker

"A truly free man does not like to play the part of either the ruler or the ruled. He is, above all, concerned with making his inner values and personal powers effective in a way as to permit him to use his own judgment in all affairs and to be independent in action." - Rudolf Rocker

"I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal." - Rudolf Rocker